Week 4 stats are in. I did better this week, despite captaining Solo. Week 4 Points: 121.50 Week 4 Rank: 88 Overall Points: 353.50 Overall Rank: 194 Moved up from 335 to 194 overall.
We need to have a fantasy league for the 2015 WWC. There should be two versions of it: One for the group round (all 24 teams are in play), and one for the knockout round (just 16 teams in play). Same scoring system (for goals, assists, shots on goal, saves, etc). If you start a player, you combine all their points for all 3 group matches as their accumulated total. I'd imagine Hope Solo would be a popular pick at the goalkeeper position, but certainly Angerer as well. Brazil's goalkeeper had a clean sheet in all 3 group matches at the 2011 WWC. Example of a fantasy lineup could look like this (3-4-3), if Scotland makes the WWC. GK - Nadine Angerer (Germany) D - Saskia Bartusiak (Germany) D - Nilla Fischer (Sweden) D - Ali Riley (New Zealand) MF - Carli Lloyd (USA) MF - Camille Abily (France) MF - Kim Little (Scotland) MF - Veronica Boquete (Spain) F - Ramona Bachmann (Switzerland) F - Lotta Schelin (Sweden) F - Marta da Silva (Brazil)
Picked up 123.50 points this week. Went with a 4-4-2 line up looking for shutouts which I got one. Just had a hard time figuring out who to play up front with the all national call ups so I went conservative that week. We should have the Americans and Canadians back but the Australians are leaving for the Asian Cup for their world cup qualifiers. So they will be gone for about a month from what the WNY Flash webcast have said. With that said, the Japanese should be gone as well so Kawasumi and Kiryu though I don't know her status for her national team. Portland Thorns FC, Seattle Reign FC, Houston Dash, FCKC and Chicago are all on double games this week. So a massive week for fantasy owners. Here are the matches for this week. Saturday May 10 Portand Thorns FC vs Seattle Reign FC - Sat 7:00pm Sunday May 11 WNY Flash vs Skyblue FC - Sun 3:00pm Chicago Red Stars vs Houston Dash - Sun 6:00pm FC Kansas City vs Washington Spirit - Sun 7:00pm Wednesday May 14 Houston Dash vs Portland Thorns FC - Wed 8:00pm Seattle Reign FC vs FC Kansas City - Wed 10:00pm Thursday May 15 Boston Breakers vs Chicago Red Stars - Thu 7:00pm So you can see its a giant week for games, and even a match on a Thursday, back to back matches twice this week. Looking over the matches, Chicago looks like they have the best chance to pull a shutout with matches against Houston and Boston. After that FCKC and Portland probably have the next best chance for a shut out. Seattle has a very tough 2 game set coming up playing against Portland and FCKC. Probably best to avoid taking defenders for this week. With Megan Rapinoe's toe injury, hard to say if she will be available for tommorrow's match until the injury report comes out it may be better to play it safe and keep her out of your line up. Week 5 line up, bolded players are starters. Formation is set to a 3-4-3 Goalkeepers: Karina LeBlanc (Chicago-allocated), Nadine Angerer (Portland) Defenders: Julie Johnston (Chicago), Michelle Wenino (Chicago), Leigh Ann Robinson (Kansas City), Kasey Kallman (Kansas City) Midfielders: Lauren Holiday (Kansas City-allocated), Erika Tymrak (Kansas City), Vanessa DeBernardo (Chicago), Kim Little (Seattle), Jessica Fishlock (Seattle) Forwards: Sydney Leroux (Seattle-allocated), Amy Rodriguez (Kansas City-allocated), Adrianna Leon (Chicago-allocated), Jessica McDonald (Portland) Taking a few risks here, Taking Vanessa DeBernardo over Lori Chalupny, since DeBernardo takes free kicks, more chances to take shots on goal and possible assists. Tymrak was injured last game, so hoping she makes it back to the line up. And Adrianna Leon, my thinking Chicago's games against Boston and Houston should allow some scoring and hopefully Chicago can capitalize. Karina LeBlanc, Julie Johnston and Michelle Wenino, really banking on some shutouts using 3 players for this. Normally I would want to split that up, but I am getting greedy. This line up could change if I see the injury report and see where Rapinoe is on the list. Might still put her in over Leon and make some changes to the line up.
Week 4 Points91.50 Week 4 Rank506 Overall Points414.50 Overall Rank35 Dropped 15 places in overall rank, but still riding up there in the top 50. Need to really check the rosters this week as I believe the Aussies are away for the weekend games.
I usually start by looking at the teams with double games, but that only excludes two teams this time around - including the one I root for. Going to make it tough.
Only 5 teams have double games. And the only single game team I'd avoid for sure is SkyBlue, given their tendency to completely suck against WNY.
Despite having Ocampo as my captain, I only got 117.5 this week. It was my best Captain pick so far from both seasons, but not my best points total. I think I got 200 once last year. Week 1 Points: 11 Captain: Holiday Week 2 Points: 30.50 Captain: Tymrak Week 3 Points: 127 Captain: Naeher Week 4 Points: 117.5 Captain: Ocampo Week 5 Points: ? Formation: 352 Line-up: F: Rodriguez F: Sinclair (C) F*: Kawasumi M: Little M: Long M: Tymrak (VC) M: Holiday M: Long M*: Buzcowski D: Barczuk D: Foord D: Jones D*: King GK: Lloyden GK*: Cameron
Aaron Lines owns Jim Gabarra like a young girl owning her toy unicorn. He can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, wherever he wants, however he wants. He could throw a 1-2-6-1 formation out there, and he would still own Sky Blue.
Ah Thank You. That's the kind of stuff I usually hope to catch with injury reports and last minute adjustments, saved me some uncertainty.
I got 61.00 points this week. Creeping on upward, which is nice. Just shy of cracking the top 1600 (whee). I had one DNP and one negative amongst my starters. http://www.nwslfl.com/lineup-4744.html
Did anyone have Hope Solo as their keeper? She got gigantic points today with her shut out, win and made like 7-8 saves. Over 20 point day for her. Captain her and she is giving a 40-50 point day. She was a key reason why Portland couldn't get a goal. Made several great stops.
Yeah. I went the Solo route this week. still miffed about the Thorns losing, but my FL team will probably benefit from it somewhat.
Apparently when I start and captain Solo she get's few points. When I don't start her she gets tons of points. So all you guys need to do it check if I'm starting her or not and choose accordingly.
Seattle has 2 very tough matches coming up this week. So you should be in the minority in having Hope Solo in for goalkeeper which means you can make up a lot of ground moving up the rankings because of this.
I'm taking the bullet on LeBlanc this week. Benedictine pitch is a very tough place to score and I doubt the Dash will be doing that. I also trust the CHI defense against Boston. At least I have little at VC
One thing about Little and players like Lauren Holiday and Amy Rodriguez. There is a good chance most of the top fantasy team owners will have these in their line ups. Its what you do with your defense and if you can grab some points with them and who you captain that can separate you from the rest. So LeBlanc is a good risk in my opinion. I captained Lauren Holiday, figuring a lot of people will be captaining Little. Risky but if the risk pays off then I can close the cap to the top team owners.
Yeah, I have captained LeBlanc and have two CHI defenders as well as Lauren Barnes. Holiday and Arod are on my team also.
In a way I'm starting to feel that risk taking maybe isn't the way to go (at least for me). I tried a couple of risks at the beginning (with captains/goalies etc.), but have switched sticking to a mostly stat-based approach and have doing reasonably well since. Seeing the Goals Against for example, people should be heavily riding Seattle defenses, since statistically they have a 2/3 chance at getting a clean sheet. I'm riding the Boring Balanced-Approach for the long haul win I guess
Risk also has to be balanced with the match ups. Normally I would take Hope Solo and use the Seattle defense, but they were matched up against Portland and Kansas City and normally a very tough match up. Hope Solo had to be great to get that shut out. Chicago has Houston and Boston, both offensively challenged and Chicago's defense is decent. So looking for shut outs here is a fairly good proposition. So yes there is risk to taking defenders from a team you normally don't take. But sometimes the risk is worth while since you can stack defenders from the team and then use forwards from Seattle. Hard to do both.
So my risk in loading up on 3 Chicago players in the backline paid off. LeBlanc, Johnston and Wenino should give me some good points. Even though WNY Flash played one game this week, Abby was worth the pick with her 2 goals.